Scary! Huge Squid Found On New Zealand Beach

Three brothers, Daniel, Jack and Matthew Apling were on the south coast of Wellington. However, they were left in shock after they saw a huge squid washed up on the New Zealand beach. It’ll be an image that they’ll never forget.

The three brothers were looking for a perfect spot on the New Zealand beach where they would be diving and spearfishing. They particularly searched for an area with a lot of paua and butterfish. However, it seems that the huge squid decided to interrupt their plans.

“My brother said ‘what’s that over there?’ and pointed it out,” Daniel Aplin told The New Zealand Herald. “It was right next to the track so we pulled over and we were like: ‘It’s a big squid’.”

When they said big, they really meant big! The brothers described themselves as “big dudes,” adding that none of them really matched the size of the huge squid on the New Zealand beach.

The squid was stretched across the beach, with Jack Aplin’s feet reaching the beginning of the tentacles of the monstrous animal. The three divers said that they had never seen something like that before.

“After we went for a dive we went back to it and got a tape measure out and it measured 4.2 metres [13.7 feet] long,” Daniel told the Herald.

Another person who was passing by said that they had measured it closer to 16.4 feet. To convince everyone that the sighting of the squid was real, Daniel Aplin posted their finding to the Facebook page “OCEAN HUNTER SpearFishing & Freediving Specialists,” adding the photographs of the giant squid that quickly gained attention and spread online.

“People worry about sharks. Bugger seeing that in the water,” one member of the group commented.

According to a spokeperson from New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, the huge animal is most likely a giant squid, Architeuthis sp. Its size led to scientists giving it three potential crowns.

It is the largest known cephalopod as well as the largest mollusk discovered so far, and the largest invertebrate that has ever been known to exist. Giant squids can grow from 9.8 to 29.5 feet in length. However, scientists have discovered some to be 42.6 feet long. Its head, body, arms and tentacles mostly weigh around 1,003 pounds or less.

“It was pretty clean, nothing major on it. There was a scratch on the top of its head but smaller than a lighter, tiny, wouldn’t think that’s what killed it,” said Daniel.

The other passerby who also saw the squid was disappointed that he didn’t see its eyes.

“It’s all in one piece, it’s in great nick but I didn’t see the eyes,” he toldThe Dominion Post.

Eventually, the brothers reported the giant squid that had washed up on the New Zealand Beach to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, which then took the necessary actions for the poor animal to be examined and taken away from there.

Author: Danica SimicDanica Simic has been writing ever since she was a child. Before she started writing for ValueWalk she was reviewing laptops, headphones and gaming equipment as well as writing articles about astronomy and game development. Danica is a student of applied and computational physics while also studying software and data engineering. Her hobbies include reading, swimming, drawing and gaming whenever she has free time. - Email her at dsimic@valuewalk.com